


Neon Eclipse

by GoblinCatKC



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, assassin Jazz, before the war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29483511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoblinCatKC/pseuds/GoblinCatKC
Summary: War looms on the horizon—street riots spill out even to the foundations of the noble towers. The senate sinks deeper into corruption even as the Prime's paranoia threatens their power base. As Functionism creeps more and more into a rusting society, ordinary mechs struggle to stay afloat. And Jazz, owner of the shadiest venue this side of Iacon, has one more thing to worry about—a Praxian enforcer, frighteningly capable, investigating a string of murders that no one should have realized were connected.
Relationships: Jazz/Prowl (Transformers)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

Cybertron—black towers rose above methane clouds and nitrate haze, and fifty-lane highways between the cities became thoroughfares of commerce and power in the city, slowly branching off into alleys in the worst ghettos of Iacon. The city center blazed with lights that never dimmed, and further out, past the cosmopolitan condos and apartments, mechs rotated through constant shift changes so that Iacon never slept.

Which made it all the easier for an assassin to slip unnoticed through the endless traffic.

Sleek and black, his frame was high-end enough to blend into the background among the elite of the capital, and yet so dark that the light only gleamed along his edges—an anonymous silhouette ghosting through traffic, driving around the block, turning down the access lane. The buildings here were cramped, almost sharing walls, and their fronts were the polished facade of crystal, steel, and neon. 

Around the back, however, accessible only by lanes for freight deliveries, cheap service bots that kept the high end restaurants and boutiques functioning. He was in luck—there was a delivery in progress.

Gleaming paint became matte and dull, headlights dimmed, and he stepped up onto the the grimy, rutted dock, waving to the workers that looked like him. 

"Need a hand?" he asked, already moving to lift a crate.

"Hey, Meister!" The delivery mech, a red and silver bot taller than Jazz by half a length, smiled down at him. "I didn't know you were hired here."

"Just a couple pickup jobs," Meister said, lifting a lighter box under his free arm. "Ain't much steady work right now."

Orion nodded once in sympathy. "Contract's are drying up left and right. This high end stuff is all I can count on now."

"Well, there's plenty in the, ah, freelance line…" 

Orion's engines rumbled in mild displeasure. "I know, but…smuggling's too risky with warbuilds in the sky looking to pick off lone bots. The Armada.."

The smaller black bot shivered. "Ain't gotta remind me. You and your femme keeping out of trouble?"

"Ariel's fine—just inside, actually," Orion said. "Bringing out the empties."

"Then I'ma head on in," he said. "See you later, bot—got a pickup on the inside."

Orion waved once, already transforming to receive the empty crates from the smaller pink mech passing Meister with a smile.

He went through the wide doors to the restaurant storeroom. Tall racks held boxes full of crystals, minerals, alcohols, and synthetics that would be crushed, dusted, and distilled into energon spiked into something pricier than his whole frame. He passed a few moments with the workers inside, helping Dion add his crate to a stack, walking backward to catch Brawn's stack of boxes before they could tumble sideways. Then, when he should have gone into the kitchen for his pickup, he zigged instead of zagged and went into the worker washracks.

Road grime was inevitable but not allowed in the kitchen—workers had to clean off before the start of their shift. However, the restaurant couldn't let staff be seen by the noble customers deigning to come down from their towers. The cooks had a cramped communal stall with splashes of solvent on the walls glistening under a flickering, dying light. He hosed the dust off his pedes, washed his armor with solvent, and subtly adjusted his surface so that the matte finish turned glossy. 

The clean, almost seamless edges of his armor now revealed the truth—curves instead of flat panels, rims instead of bare wheels, shiny headlights instead of burned out sockets. No longer Meister, the dockhand, he was a gleaming tower mech that passed through the doors to the elevators and rode up to the dining floor.

When he stepped out, acrylic carpeting greeted his pedes, softening his steps as he picked his way through the crowd. He didn't stop to admire the walls of gold plating textured with hammered copper, nor did he pay attention to the drapes of dangling crystal beads nor the tables seating senators, tower nobles, and business leaders. 

He did keep an optic on the warbuilds, two or three to each table, all of them keeping watchful gaze over their masters. He recognized a few—Blackjack, Swindle, Nightracer—all of them servants and bodyguards to their civilian owners. Kaon bots who sold out and put themselves under lease to keep the energon flowing.

But none of them recognized him, and he kept his distance, heading to the far stairwell—

"Maestro! Fancy seeing you here."

"Langton," he said agreeably, pausing to give a polite nod. "I thought you were still working on your nature preserve."

Seated with two other mechs, a gray and green mech rolled his optics, taking a long draught of his cube. Tiny sparks glittered at the edges as nitroglycerin reacted with infinitesimal amounts of kinetic bolides. Langton gave no invitation to sit and join the party, nor introductions to the other mechs who chatted among each other to pretend Maestro didn't exist. Either this was a clandestine meeting or Maestro simply wasn't high enough in the hierarchy, and Langton wouldn't embarrass him by having him stay.

"The senate's dragging their pedes, as per usual," Langton said. "I've tried to get ahold of someone, but all the lobbyists are locked up tight with the trouble at Kaon and Vos." 

Langton frowned and looked closely at him. "I don't suppose you might have an in with someone, Ratbat maybe…?"

"Afraid I haven't the slightest," Maestro said. "Too caught up in with my own management. But if I get a senator's audio, I'll put in a word. Those turbofoxes are too adorable."

"And too close to extinction," Langton sighed. "Say hello to Mirage for me, if he's come back from slumming."

Maestro gave an appreciative chuckle. "Will do, will do. Ta!"

Out, out, finally out—his spark thrummed heavily in its chamber. He didn't know the two mechs with Langton, but he had recognized the purple decals discretely painted on their shoulder. It came out of Kaon, part of warbuild culture, but the radio broadcasts were heavily expurgated, cleaned and sterilized before being leaving the city. Something was brewing within Kaon…and now it was here among the politicos.

He needed to talk to Blaster later.

But for now, he went into the washracks meant for the customers, opening the door—then holding it politely for a mech coming out. 

Platina was one of the nicer restaurants serving the financial district. Their washracks were more spacious and elegant than his whole chambers back home. The window alone was large enough to fit a mech, with a view of the entire city below and a lever to raise the pane and air out the racks after too much steam. There were private stalls with locks and small tables within for the customer needing a little more time for more sensitive business. 

Maestro chose the stall in the center, backed in and shut the door. He broke the lock so that it showed that the stall was empty but jammed. And then he waited, peering through the thin slit in the door as patrons came in and out. 

Several minutes passed as mechs went about their business. All of them were tower mechs—their fine-tuned engines made little noise as they cleared old oil, washed away traces of grime, and polished any cloudy edges on their frames. One of them opened a small box of powdered nitro that she vented in, then shared with another femme. Then they snapped it shut and left with a lighter bounce in their step.

Half an orn ticked by. Mechs wandered in and out, but there was never any risk of being noticed. Mechs taking illegal stimulants or exchanging data chips nervously focused on their own crimes and missed the bot only meters away. 

And then he heard the sounds of his target. 

Small scratches on the floor, a distinct cadence of two steps and then two heavier steps—the sound of Fuel Arbitor Ratbat pacing on his wings to the sinks. And the familiar crackle of static on a non-regulated frequency.

"—rations to Vos," Ratbat said. "If they can't stop squabbling with Tarn, they can all starve. Iacon will not support constant skirmishes. ...so let the jets rage. The armada can either starve or yield administrative control."

There was a long pause. Ratbat went to the window, using the distant sound of traffic to partially mask his conversation. 

"...you received payment? Then release half a shipment. And tell them twice as much next time—even nobles look up from their kerosene when their rations have been shorted."

Click. Silence. Clearly the conversation was done. Ratbat went to the sink, clearing away the grime borne of having to walk so heavily on the floor—

—Ratbat's optics opened wide as he spotted the door opening and the black mech coming forward, light gleaming on a cold white visor. As Ratbat vented in, too frozen to scream, one dark hand went around his faceplate, the other hand caught his throat, and the smaller bot was yanked back into the stall. A second later, his neck struts and cabling all snapped, turned sharply to one side. As Ratbat fell limp, his consciousness raced down toward his spark chamber, taking shelter in the hope that—

Oblivion. Claws punched through the spark chamber, and Ratbat's frame turned gray. 

The killer left the corpse propped up in the private washrack and yanked the broken door shut after himself, making sure it stuck. Then he raised the window, slipped out onto the ledge and gently let it close after himself. Invisible in the darkness, he dug his claws into the cracks and seams of the skyscraper's facade and climbed down to the access road, transforming and quietly driving back onto the main road.

There was no rush. There would be plenty of time before anyone noticed Ratbat was missing, and certainly time before the restaurant stopped panicking and hid their own indiscretions before they contacted the enforcers. And then more time for an investigation to be authorized. And by then—

He was almost home when he heard the news on the radio. Patina had suffered an explosion that had ignited the acetone in the washrack plumbing. Several floors were on fire, but so far only one casualty had been noted—Chief Fuel Arbitor Ratbat, just returned from diplomatic overtures to the warring cities Vos and Tarn.

Now that was unexpected. Never mind the investigation—they had erased the evidence for him. 

In the shadows of a long overpass, his dark coloring melted away, leaving gleaming white and dramatic blue and red markings on the side. Iacon roads were a tangle of bridges and ramps, and he took a few more detours than usual before he finally pulled in front of the Neon Eclipse.

He felt the beat from inside the club even as he transformed up onto the curb. The line to get in stretched two buildings down, paused at the door by a blue and gray bouncer.

"Holding down the fort?" he asked, straightening his visor in the polished black window.

"All clear, Jazz," Beachcomber said. "But your favorite bot has descended from on high to grace us with his presence."

Jazz groaned theatrically, patting his bouncer’s back. "Thanks for the warning. I'll send Skids out to replace ya in a breem."

"S'all good, bot, s'all good."

Under the sign of blocky blue Cybertronian script for Neon, the liquid pink letters of Eclipse, Jazz pushed wide the double doors of his club, spilling out the pink glow like candy to whet the appetite of the crowd waiting their turn. Bits of silver slivers and tinsel swept past him as the cool climate control blew by. The party was in full frenzy.

For all the lights inside, the club itself was dark—pink track lights along the edges lit the black floor, the black walls, the black ceiling, reflected in highlights that faded to shadow. In the two chambers on either side of the door, mechs met over drinks, watching gladiator battles on large screens, shouting to be heard over the noise. He spotted the twins at work, Sideswipe on one side, Sunstreaker on the other, keeping the crowd under control.

He kept walking. The long corridor was by design, partly to build anticipation, mostly to hide where the kitchens took up space, with polished walls that reflected like mirrors as he stepped into the main chamber.

Dozens of mechs filled the club—a few at the long bar in the back, signaling orders to his bartender who took colorful bottles of kerosene, nitroglycerine, and other synthetics down from the high shelves. A few mechs stood at the stage on the far side, watching the dancers. A pair of sinuous femmes performed a floor show lascivious enough to be illegal, reflectors on their fronts mimicking sparks dipping into each other. 

But it was the dj in the corner, elevated above the crowd behind a complex soundboard, that headlined the show—Blaster, with all of his cassettes controlling the lights, arranging the music for his stream and what would inevitably become the next shift's hottest playlist.

_I'm falling farther into you  
Signal lost and falling fast  
Interference fading out  
Spiraling a final crash_

Jazz came to the elevator. A seamless black door in a black wall noticeable more because Dead End leaned against a table. As always, his security detail drowsed behind half-closed optics.

_Any problems?_ Jazz asked, unlocking the elevator and stepping in.

_Be serious,_ Dead End said. _Shift's so quiet, even that hippy outside can handle it._

The elevator doors were opaque on the outside, transparent inside, and Jazz rose to the top floor with a wide view of the party below. The black floor devoured the lights from above—Blaster's laserbeams and glittering sparkles swirled with the rhythm. Wheeljack and Skids handled the bar, and Dead End swept from one end of the club to the other, watchful and bored at once.

On the top floor, clear polymer ran from the ceiling to the kevlar weave carpet, providing a discrete vantage point over the dance floor. In this VIP lounge, micro-acrylic insets on the walls muffled the music. Foam underlays beneath the carpet dulled the sound from below, and padded furniture absorbed lingering noises so that the music was a faint rumble in the walls, accented by the soft pour and clink of kerosene cubes.

"Ah, the life of my party returns…fashionably late, of course."

The blue and white tower mech lay back on the broad divan, idly swirling his drink. Everything Mirage did exuded idleness—his lifted hand, his half-lidded optics, the low roll of his engine. Even his voice drawled with the high accents of the obscenely wealthy.

Behind Mirage, Hound stood at attention, the dutiful bodyguard watching the door, the darkness beyond the windows, the shadows in the corner of the room. 

"Didn't know we'd set a time," Jazz said, pausing at the side bar. Up here, the few mechs with access poured their own drinks, and he shook up a mix of energon, ethylene and nitro, slamming it back in one go.

"Your friend want anything?"

The shadows in the corner shifted subtly, and the air turned tense.

"Hardly a friend, he's too quiet," Mirage grumbled, not noticing the way Jazz stared unerringly at the mech hidden in the far corner. "Barely says anything. None of the usual dramatics—this is a raid, you will comply immediately, prepare for download."

There was a huff. A black and white arm reached out and flipped the switch on the lamp beside him. The mech now bathed in a crystalline glow glared past Mirage to focus in on Jazz. An Enforcer decal graced his hood, along with the designation of Special Investigations on his doorwings. 

Jazz raised an optic ridge. Most Praxians kept their wings subspaced, and certainly all Enforcers did. The sensor density made them easy targets in any fight. This mech was making a show of not wanting a fight. Considering Jazz couldn't see any blaster or rifle, that either meant that the Enforcer didn't resort to violence to get the job done…or else he was very confident in his ability to start a fight in a nanosecond.

"Izzat so?" Jazz set out a cube, mixed it up, and carried it to the Enforcer. "Then to what do we owe this courtesy call from Cyberton's finest, Officer…?"

"Prowl," he said, and hesitated, studying Jazz.

Who knew exactly what he presented himself as—a fashionably high end mech, probably not tower build but stylish enough to pass, doorwings safely ensconced in subspace, no visible armaments and both hands taken up with energon cubes. And a faceplate partially obscured by a visor that hid how his smile didn't reach his optics.

Static crackled over Jazz's frame. He recognized the Enforcer scan searching for weapons, hidden data packets, anything odd in his subspace. Jazz was glad he hadn't brought home any souvenirs of the night.

"Designation: Jazz," Prowl said. "There is little about you in the system."

Jazz grinned and said nothing.

"Your function?" Prowl asked.

"Singer, dancer extraordinaire," Jazz said as his grin turned ice cold. "Entertainment, all forms. If that's still allowed."

"…that debate was settled in the last legislature." Prowl took the cube and gazed at the contents. 

"Ain't illegal—promise," Jazz said, pulling over the nearest chair with his pede, turning and straddling it so he could lean against the back.

"I'll be able to tell if it is," Prowl warned him, and he took a sip that didn't go down at first, evaluating the mix. His optics widened slightly. "Is that…?"

"Ah, a connoisseur," Mirage said. "Not many mechs have the palate for quartz."

Prowl finished the cube in one go and set it on the table beside himself.

"I'm unaccustomed to luxuries in my line of work," he said. "Usually I only have time for station recharges when I'm on a case."

"'Zat what this is?" Jazz asked.

"…tangentially," Prowl said. "I'm newly assigned from Praxus. I…am looking for information related to a series of incidents there, and one of my sources pointed me in your direction."

"He thought I was you," Mirage said helpfully, slurring his words as the kerosene settled in his systems. "Tower Noble Jazz, slumming in the lower decks."

Neither of them looked at him.

"An' who was this helpful source?" Jazz asked so casually.

"You understand if I want to keep that confidential," Prowl said.

"Maybe I want to stay confidential," Jazz said.

"Understandable," Prowl said. "Although my source also spoke very highly of you."

"Izzat right?"

"He said you're 'one of the good ones'."

Jazz's jaw clicked shut. He grumbled to himself and glanced sideways at the windows along the wall. Pitch black, they allowed for a view of the street below but hid the room from outside optics. He saw the line to his club stretch around the corner, saw the dark roads with burnt out streetlights, saw Iacon's distant glow in the heart of the city. 

"Damn it, Ratchet…"

Prowl's faceplate didn't twitch. If Jazz was right, he gave no hint of it.

And Jazz now just wanted the Enforcer out of his business. If this had nothing to do with him, then Jazz wanted even less to do with it.

"Fine. Tell me what you want so you can mosey off to your own work."

No reaction to his change in tone except for Prowl to summon something from subspace.

"I am searching for information regarding this decal."

Jazz expected the strange purple mark that Prowl held in his hand. What he didn't expect was the sigil to be stamped on a sheared fragment of armor. He sat straight, lifting his helm slightly.

"Where…uh, who'd that come from?"

"That is being investigated," Prowl said. "Do you recognize it?"

Oh sure, Jazz thought, no place special, just the fancy joint full'a credits and short on morals. And a few dozen other places I ain't gonna mention. 

In fact, the only thing he could say without incriminating himself—

"I seen it on the road from Kaon," Jazz said. "Mechs doing long haul pickups across the wastes."

"Smuggling?" Prowl asked.

"Don't know," Jazz said. "Running my own jobs, ain't asking questions of strange mechs. We're all just trying to avoid jets, if you know what I mean."

Prowl grimaced. "Yes, unfortunately. They call those death flights now."

Jazz didn't change expression. "S'accurate."

"The decal—was it on the cargo they're carrying?"

Jazz shook his helm once. "Nope. Ain't never on anything but mechs—shoulder sometimes, rarely the hood. It's always kinda there on the side, just another bit of gloss and design."

Prowl fell silent, obviously calculating. The minute stretched to two, then three. Four. Jazz's engines rumbled, and he squashed them back down to a steady rpm. He desperately needed a swing around the block, maybe do a turn downstairs downstage. He wasn't built to idle like this. 

"Thank you for your cooperation," Prowl said, standing and subspacing the mark. "I may come back if I have any more questions. Here, my frequency—in case you remember anything else."

Jazz startled to see in his hand an actual card with Prowl's serial number and frequency, plus his Enforcer base number and code to directly contact him.

"Now there's something you don't see anymore," Mirage said, vocalizing Jazz's thoughts. "An honest Enforcer. I thought you all burned your cards the moment you rolled off base."

Prowl glanced sideways at him, but it was Jazz that he answered. "I know it's a cliche to say at this point, but I am one of the good ones. At least Ratchet thought so."

Jazz half-smiled, gazing at the card, then storing it away. "Gotcha. If I remember anything."

Halfway to the door, Prowl brought a blaster out from subspace and presented it, handle out, to Hound, who took it with a small nod and clipped it back into his holster. 

Then Jazz saw Prowl out, waiting for the elevator to close, watching the number tick until it opened on the floor below. He went to the windows, waiting for Prowl to appear. The Enforcer stepped out, stretched…then looked up and gave a small salute at the dark windows. With that, he transformed and drove down the long road, vanishing toward Iacon.

Snapping his helm around, Jazz turned on Mirage. "What the hell was that, you noble paperweight? Not even a warning?"

Still the picture of a wealthy wastrel, Mirage gave a long vent and set his cube on the floor.

"Have a little sympathy, you peasant—"

"Don't you 'peasant' me nothing," Jazz said, heading to the lounge chair Prowl had sat so rigidly in, instead flopping sideways across. "Primus, you got any idea what kinda night I had? And then I come back to that? What, did your 'invisible' suddenly go poof?"

"Jazz—"

"And no one downstairs warned me, neither!"

"Jazz—"

"Me an' Ratchet gonna have a long chat, ain't no doubt about—"

"He was here when I came," Mirage said over him. "I didn't have time to throw up my shield. And you should be glad I put on the dumb noble act. He thought I was you."

Jazz tapped the lamp with his pede, turning it off. He turned on the large screen on the wall instead, dialing to the news and the talking helms chattering about the footage in the lower corner, the live feed of blue and white flames and smoke still pouring out of the Platina washracks.

"Yeah? And what he'd say?"

"That he just came to talk, and if I cooperated, there'd be no trouble. I think it really threw him for a loop that I wasn't you."

Jazz snorted. "He's a calculator. They don't like surprises. And then he just sat back and waited?"

"And told me to stay put," Mirage said, putting his hand up toward the quiet mech behind him, cupping the bodyguard's faceplate. "Wouldn't even let poor Hound out."

"So you just kicked back overenergizing?" Jazz said. "Tough job there, m'lord."

Hound chuckled.

"I'm not as good as you are," Mirage groaned. "I had to drink to put him off."

"Hm." Jazz vented again. "By the by, Langton says hi. Think he wants funds for his preserve."

Mirage scowled. "Funds, nothing. He wants Hound."

Behind him, Hound shuddered. 

"I think we'll keep slumming down here, thank you very much." Mirage nodded at his bodyguard, who understood his look and brought a packet out of subspace.

"That enforcer didn't see you packing?" Jazz asked, sitting up. "Didn't he scan you?"

"He scanned Mirage," Hound said, carrying the packet over. "I'm just a bodyguard. He had my gun, so why worry?"

Hound didn't mention that most mechs couldn't afford a subspace generator—it took credits, a dedicated space in the frame. Nobles didn't bother giving those to bodyguards who needed their weapons immediately on hand. They were too expensive to retrofit into a lower caste mech. There were very few nobles like his master unit.

"What'd ya'll find?" Jazz asked, opening the packet. As he downloaded the video, he listened to Mirage explain what he was seeing.

"It's an underground fight ring," Mirage said. "The crowd's mostly warbuilds. It's hard to see anything with just their spotlights."

The camera feed was shaky, moving between mechs much taller than the bot doing the recording. The bot made his way to the front of the crowd, finding a spot between other small vehicles. Before him, the crowd parted in a wide circle around an arena made of pitted pavement splashed with energon, oil, and steel shavings.

"Yeah, that's underground, all right," Jazz said. "That's gotta be a buncha levels down in the superstructure. Dangerous even to get there."

"Not for warbuilds," Mirage said. "Those brutes have armor plating as thick as me."

Hound glanced aside, watching the city glow.

"Jets, constructor sets, an' army vets…" Jazz mused, studying the different frame types and gathered gestalts. "Laying bets on their own no holds barred fights. So who's…?"

A little Praxian came out, holding a microphone, waving at the audience that easily dwarfed him.

"Thanks for waiting for the cleanup!" he yelled over their applause. "Now the main event—you've seen him on the vids! You've heard him on the city broadcasts! Make noise for our newest challenger all the way from across Cybertron, wielding an ax covered in the energon of a thousand fighters, the Champion of Nyon, the warbuild Drag!"

The mech that appeared towered a length taller than the Praxian at his pedes. Orange and gray, with an axe covered in grime and rust and oil, he laboriously stomped into view, and every step set the level shaking. Scars and dents covered his frame, and his face had been broken and welded down the middle. Jazz guessed that his alt-mode was a monstrous tank, maybe even a heavy gunboat. And Drag was certainly a champion—the senate's sigil lay on his chestpiece, the red decal of Primus's faceplate and symbol of the legislature's approval.

The Praxian announcer, darting aside so the axe wouldn't drip on his red and blue paint job, now began to release a thick smokescreen that drifted dramatically around the arena. 

"His opponent needs no introduction, the glory of Tarn—"

It was impossible to hear the other mech's introduction. The crowd roared, crushed close, jostled the recording bot so that he stumbled to one pede. 

There was the awful rending of steel. Energon splashed the camera. There were yells, cheers, an impossible endless rage that manifested in the crowd's collective scream. 

When the bot could record again, the fight was over. 

Drag sat upright, now on his knees, sitting squat on the ground. His helm was gone—no, the recording zoomed in. The helm was crushed down deep into Drag's chest, smashing the senate's seal, and the ruptured spark casing lay bare. The spark inside flickered, showers of white hot steel dripping out as his essence of life touched exposed wiring and circuits. The spark slipped free and dissipated. The frame turned gray, crumbled at the edges, and collapsed in on itself. 

The view swung wildly across the arena, trying to focus on the mech who had caused such swift damage. It was impossible to get a good view. The arena started to lurch and sag with the tons of so many jets and heavy warbuilds pressing for a look.

All Jazz saw was a lot of gray, a glowing chain, and a single flash of the purple decal they had seen earlier that night.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"No idea," Hound said. "Just got it today. Mirage has bots looking, but you know Tarn."

Jazz frowned. Yes, he knew Tarn—distracting themselves from starvation by watching duels and gladiators battling to the death. There were legit fights in stadiums that accommodated thousands of mechs, and there were small matches in alleys and underground pit fights. The whole city-state either fought or watched the fights. Finding one arena would be like finding a nut in a sea of bolts.

He sat straight, slumping back in his seat for a moment. It had been a long night, and he needed a recharge before he tried thinking hard about anything. The purple decals, the pit fighting, now an Enforcer… Ultimately it had nothing to do with him, but strange coincidences had a habit of suddenly doing him some violence. Maybe these purple decals were new clients. Maybe they were competition. Color him curious.

"Put a pin in it," he muttered. "Save it for later. Business comes first."

"But…" said Mirage. "Do we tell the Enforcer?"

A moment. Jazz stared at the purple decal a bit longer. Then slowly shook his helm.

"Ain't nothing solid," he said finally. "Maybe if I need something from him."

"Could give him a distraction now?" Mirage offered. "Give him something else to focus on."

Jazz's mouth quirked into a grin. "Oh mech, you wound my spark. I gotta rest and recharge—next shift's all work. He'll have plenty of distraction then."


	2. Chapter 2

The surface of Cybertron reflected the stars and caught the glimmer of the nebula drifting by. The planet spun through galactic eddies, itself a mote on the cosmic tides of the pink and red nebula. From the crystal towers clustered in the center of the grandest cities, the planet sailed like a ship through a black ocean.

The spires of the Senate, the business high rises, the condominiums and plazas and crystal gardens of the wealthy elite sprawled out in comfortable excess, awash in an undimmed, silver glow.

Past that were the dented apartments, covered parking lots, rusted tenements, scrapyards and offices that had long since fallen into disrepair—all buckling under the weight of a millennia of neglect. Roofs sagged and cracked, walls crumbled, floors collapsed, and the destitute mechs inside huddled inside, protected at least from the worst of Cybertron's weather patterns.

For those with a paid subscription, news stations blasted a warning across the bottom of the screen in a scroll of ticker feed:

ACID RAIN - IACON, PRAXUS, NYON. 2 JOOR. WARNING - ACID RAIN - IACON, PRAXUS, NYON. 2 JOOR. WARNING

The sirens started late in the shift—the first and only warning the rest of the city would receive. One, two, twelve—tiny drops began to fall, striking sensors embedded across Iacon. Thunder rumbled overhead, following flashes of lightning that revealed the darkness actually thick cloud cover stained red.

Mechs had seconds to flee into shelter, an open shop, an open parking lot, huddled together as they watched rain sweep the streets, watched the unlucky mechs, the ones just inches from safety. First sparks between the joints, the involuntary twitches and jerks, then collapse, spasms, electric screams. Then stillness. Steel melting into the road. A last grinding cry as the machinery broke down. Then the frame grayed out and the spark dimmed as the mech dissolved.

Two joor later, the clouds drifted by. Rain flowed down gutters, gathered in cisterns, ate through the pipes and wells meant to collect them, finding new routes through the lower levels of Cybertron. Beneath the planet's shell of tangled roads, pools of acid rain gathered in pockets of still pools, covered over by grime and tar and ash until it looked the same as any other bit of pavement. Rain collected in broken steel girders, in torn insulation insulation, cavities in the superstructure, steadily eating a path into the understructure.

Lost highways, forgotten lanes and buildings long since covered with new roads, new towers…the understructure was the dirty, beating heart of the planet. Empties, criminals, smugglers and mechs who wanted to escape the society above—they all moved through the hazy smog.

Jazz saw them in the distance, spotted their highbeams flickering between the girders and struts, just like they saw his own lights, and in mutual silent agreement, they avoided one another.

_You still alive down there?_

Jazz laughed despite himself. He maneuvered through a tight junction between broken pavement impaled by a fallen radio tower. In a bit of playfulness, he cartwheeled over the worn hole and paced along the tower strut like a tight rope walker.

 _S'just a walk in the park,_ he answered. _Almost there. How you holding up? You sounding a bit weak._

 _Liar,_ Blaster said. _I've got Rewind dedicated to signal strength._

Behind the teasing, Blaster's latest playlist spun in electro-synthemagnetic sound. Jazz could only hear its echoes—the key wandered high, then dropped low, a steady pulse that whispered the lyrics across the miles.

_I've been riding this road for a million turns of the galaxy_   
_Still searching for you_   
_I've never given up hope_   
_You have to be close_   
_The stars blur past — thoughts of you crash into me_

Jazz bent at the waist, delicately catching the steel beam in his hands, leaning forward, finding equilibrium—held himself upside down, staring at the void below, endless meters into the early layers of the planet. Then he brought one pede across, then the other, turning a gentle wheel and coming back on his pedes.

 _Almost there,_ Jazz said again. _You sure he's coming this way?_

_Jazz, I love you like a twin. I am not checking that schedule one more time._

Jazz scoffed—Blaster would if he'd asked—but there was no need. Functionism was nothing, absolutely nothing, if not predictable.

The elite senate Autobots had embraced the new faith that gave them permission to lord their rank above the common mechs. Tower mechs had the credits and assets to ignore the rules, but the bots in the tenements, the factory cogs, the service bots and file pushers…they chafed at their life-long stations. A millennia of filing and data management, cargo long-hauls and street sweeping, galled all but the most fanatical calculators.

Those bots needed constant reinforcement. And functionist priests were there to enforce the faith.

Jazz arrived with time to spare. The incendiary rounds were easy to plant—vorn of junked machinery, tangled cables and broken girders made for convenient lodges—but it took longer to make his way back the way he'd come. He was no suicide bomber. He'd trigger everything when he was clear.

 _I see them,_ Blaster said, outwardly dancing in time with the laser show around him, mimicking some of the moves of the femmes below. _He's got five escorts with him._

Collateral damage that Jazz was fine with.

 _Patch me in?_ he asked.

Blaster had shared the feed before he finished asking. Jazz grabbed onto anything around him, steadying himself as his optics suddenly saw the first van, the priest in his cruiser, and two heavy vehicles in case anyone tried to fight. Jazz tilted his helm, considering that. The last two were warbuilds—small diaclone-frames, but the thick armor and mounted canons left no doubt. They were the religious branch of Enforcers come to root out disobedience.

 _Since when do warbuilds join the enforcers,_ he wondered, _and push the whole 'cog in a machine' shindig?_

Blaster had no answer for him. The convoy was close to the explosives. In a moment, they would ride over. His spark skipped a beat. The music struck an off-note. Blaster couldn't vent. For a moment, he cut his reception so he wouldn't have to watch.

_Jazz—Jazz, you gotta—if you're going to—_

Jazz ignited the payload all at once.

Incendiary rounds lit up flashcord that exploded in a sharp line, a circle neatly cookie-cut from the road. The lead van transformed and caught the edge in his hand, but the rest of the convoy plummeted into the darkness. There were screams—from the priest shrieking down in a jumble with the second van. The two vehicles in the back transformed—one caught a girder and caught the warbuild in front of him.

"—Ah'm too heavy!" one yelled. "Drop me—"

"I'm not guzzling all this fuel for nothing, you damn—"

Jazz didn't care if they got away. He ignored their struggling in favor of the dramatic drop of the priest and his cruiser. They fell from the light into the gloom, plunging past where he stood and down into the depths below.

The tumbling cruiser struck the ancient, broken road and ripped in half, toppling in two pieces spilling energon and oil. The frame grayed out in an instant, and the pieces landed on the priest who'd fallen in a deep pool of acid rain.

Mission complete. No matter how long it took for the priest to die, Jazz's job here was done.

Electric screams and glitching cries for help followed Jazz as he turned and started back, doing another handstand and cartwheel across the void.

The cartwheel saved his helm.

Sharp points scraping down steel was his only warning as something lunged past him, never expecting its prey to playfully do a somersault in the darkness.

He came up into a sprint. Something that didn't run on pedes or drive—a cadence of four beats drove faster, padding over fallen masonry and beams. He transformed and hit full speed, slowing only to risk taking a sharp turn, coming up on brittle pavement. The road shuddered under his wheels, cracking, crumbling, and he lay on the speed even harder.

Rule of street racing 101 was lighten the load. He burned up energon, used all his coolant. He drove on exposed rebar that vibrated dangerously under his wheels, scraping his rear axle. Whatever was behind him wasn't slowing down either, and something raked at his wheelwell, aimed at his tire again, missed, again, missed, again—almost—

 _The word for today,_ Jazz thought, _is 'almost'._

He exploded out of the culvert where he'd entered, transforming in midair, upside down as he took aim, pedes on the street as he fired, sliding backward as his shots missed, missed, missed—

—struck the feline-shaped cassette full in the face, sending it backward with a snap. It landed in a heap at the lip of the culvert and didn't move.

Jazz didn't stop to look. Transforming again, he gripped the road and sped the other way as fast as he could. He was several blocks away before he could chance looking in his rearview to see if it was on his aft.

He didn't see it at all. It wasn't where it had fallen, it wasn't on the road, it wasn't anywhere.

He drove long miles after that, risking refueling with cheap energon that would burn later, looking over his shoulder as he bought just enough coolant to get him home. Only after changing his armor color to matte to gleaming black to white, taking numerous circles, mixing through the heavy traffic of the business district—finally he returned to the Neon Eclipse.

The club was quiet. It was shift change, and Blaster had left his cassettes to reset the soundboard. The femmes were off for the next two shifts. The doors were closed and the queue gone, and Beachcomber helped Skids sweep up and clear empty cubes. Jazz warned his bots to keep an optic out and went up to the lounge, collapsing on the long couch against the wall.

Long seconds passed. Jazz's overdrive systems began to properly cool, shift into a lower gear, slowing more and more as his frame began self-repair. The mutilated bones of Cybertron had run his tires ragged, had left his claws dulled, his circuits painfully hot. Wisps of steam rose from his fuel coils and tanks, and he dragged in a deep vent, shivering in the cool air.

He heard a groan to his right.

Blaster sat with his pedes outstretched on the floor, leaning against the side of the couch, one arm flung over his optics.

"That…Primus," Blaster said. "Are you all right?"

Jazz folded his arms and lay his helm down.

"The others," he said, suddenly weary and heavy as lead. "Did they make it?"

"The escorts?" Blaster vented in once. "Yeah. Ran off together."

Jazz considered that. Then shut his optics.

"Bodyguards who let a priest die. I'd run off, too."

The air conditioner droned overhead as the fan turned slowly. Iacon's glow turned into a glare against the window as the planet turned to face the nebula core. Jazz reached out to lower the blinds. Long, thin shadows fell across the room over both of them.

"The priest died?" Blaster asked.

Jazz nodded once.

"His cruiser, too."

Blaster brought his pedes up, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared at a distant spot well beyond Iacon.

"Sluice," Jazz whispered. "I'm sorry, mech."

Blaster furrowed his optic ridges, confusion pushing through his mood. He turned his helm toward Jazz, though not enough to actually see him.

"What?" Blaster heaved another vent. "Why?"

"You shouldn'a had to see that," Jazz said.

"Dumb-aft," Blaster muttered. "Not like I didn't know what you do. What we do. Not like I don't see the news. The aftermath."

"It ain't that," Jazz said. "It ain't…I dunno…I mean, if you don't…"

"Be a total hypocrite if I balked at the first spilled oil I see," Blaster said. "Not like they didn't deserve everything they got. It's just…they assign Enforcers to the priests, don't they?"

Jazz half-shrugged. "Slagged if I know."

Neither spoke. Climbing laboriously to his pedes, Blaster took a long vent. The shadows washed over him, dark and light playing over his faceplate as he went to the bar and took a hit of cheap ethyl.

"Hell with it. My cassettes can do the pre-show. I'm gonna go catch a recharge. See you in a couple shifts."

From the corner of his optic, Jazz watched him go. He spent a long time watching the empty space by the door, listening to the fan spinning overhead. The light from the window slowly passed over him as the planet passed through the nebula, and he managed a short, fitful recharge on the couch.

When he woke, the light was gone. Cybertron was dark once again, and he had an appointment to keep.

* * *

He didn't have to drive far. The streets were empty after a rainfall, with pavement covered in dangerous slicks that could slag a mech's tires to the rim. The cleaners had been through, washing solvent ahead of them, but Jazz had to be careful to avoid getting burned.

The farther from the pleasure district he drove, the farther uptown he went, the cleaner the roads became. Three, sometimes even four cleaners went through to make sure the business bots didn't singe their tires. By the time he reached the office, he felt safe enough to drive with Blaster's playlist in his audios.

_I've never known a beat that can make my spark skip_   
_You have to be out here somewhere_   
_I know you're somewhere out there_   
_A beat keeps on skipping_   
_My tires are slipping — thoughts of you crash into me_

Finally he arrived. The Box Bolt lay under the shadow of the great highway, at the edge of fifty lanes of planetary traffic. Always a hive of cargo trucks coming to refuel and pass inspection, the depot also served as a place that offered a cup of hot tar and synthoil to warm the coils for the long haul. And, nestled in the back, was a credit transfer and courier office.

Surprisingly empty for this time of shift, the counter stood beside the main entrance with rows of small boxes built into the walls, all of them numbered for deliveries. Jazz gave the buzzer a gentle push, then leaned against the counter and waited.

The moment dragged. Jazz began to drum his fingers on the steel countertop, bopping his helm to the beat in his spark. His pede tapped the floor. As the seconds stretched, he did a little shimmy, a turn, moving for an invisible audience.

"Mm…make my spark skip…you have to be out here somewhere…"

The lights flickered overhead, highlighting the grime and dust covering every surface. He shut his optics, did another turn. The lights were really the flashing lasers of Blaster's show, the stage lights shining different colors as he swayed, lifted his arms, finding the rhythm.

"…beat keeps on slipping, my tires are slipping…"

He almost felt it—the strings lifting his spark, the choir singing, the flash overhead timed perfectly to the crash of percussion, the deep peal of bells. And his own voice, Chamber Harmonic's prodigy entered in the Tower competition. The other contestants quailed before the crowd's judgment, but he thrived on the pressure, he _thrived_ —

"…still searching for you, ain't giving up hope…"

There was a low laugh and the sound of the credits being tallied up at the register.

"A solo performance. Should I tip?"

Like a curtain coming down, the dream vanished back into his memory. Jazz came around, leaning his hip against the counter.

"Ah, couldn't hardly do that, mixing business and pleasure like that. What I owe you?"

"Let's see…"

Wearing a nametag labeled Blurr, the blue and white bot pulled up the list of deliveries, then counted down the rows of post boxes.

"You're really lucky 'cause I just brought this one in—wasn't due for another couple shifts, but the snarl on the highway made it easier to cut across, slide in under the fifty-lane. Probably why there aren't that many mechs in right now. I don't suppose—"

He pulled the the box out and checked the slip.

"Aw, nuts."

"Something wrong?"

"It hasn't been scanned," Blurr said. "Not properly. And the Enforcer here won't be back for another shift."

"Enforcer?" Jazz stood a little straighter. "Since when do y'all have an Enforcer stationed here?"

"We've always had one out there scanning the cargo bays" Blurr said. "But after what happened last shift, he's supposed to do the small packages, too. It's just the usual officer they got doing the convoy inspections, but the lazy slag doesn't want to get off his aft at the best of times…"

Someone was coming up behind them. Jazz felt the irritation that he might be put off to the side, waiting for bureaucracy to catch up while Blurr tended to another customer. Wouldn't have been so bad except the line here could grow out the door on a busy shift. Jazz wasn't built to stand around for long.

Jazz gave a vent. "Hell. This package wasn't a rush job, but I do gotta get some turnaround on business, y'know? I wonder if—"

"Perhaps I may help?"

Jazz's back vents flared at the familiar voice, and his joints froze for an instant. The bot behind him came up to stand at the counter, nodding once at Blurr and Jazz.

"Why, Mr. Special Investigations," he said, forcing himself to relax. "What're you doing in a li'l side-street motor pool?"

Beside him, Prowl favored him with a smile that said he had Jazz's doorwings in a vise and he knew it. Worse, he stood a helm and a half taller than Jazz and flared his own doorwings to better loom over him.

"Hardly side-street when it's off the main highway," Prowl said smoothly. "The courier office here is normally too small to worry over, but after last shift, that is no longer the case."

Jazz frowned, annoyed that he had to tilt his helm to look him in the optics.

"What happened last shift?"

Prowl visibly reset his audios as if he'd misheard.

"You…don't know? It's been all over the news."

"I've been clearing ticker tape outta the vent systems after Blaster's last party," Jazz said. "Ain't seen nothing for the last shift an' a half. What happened?"

"…a Priest of Functionism was assassinated," Prowl said slowly. "Killed in the street."

Prowl studied Jazz closely—the ripple of shock through Jazz. His quickened breath. The light rise of his throat cables. His—

Prowl's engines rumbled in quiet frustration. He couldn't see Jazz's optics. Inconclusive.

"I…didn't think they ever left their temple," Jazz murmured.

"Not a high priest," Prowl said quickly. "One of their parish functionaries was making his rounds with his escort and there was an explosion."

"Someone lobbed a bomb at 'em?" Jazz said. "In the middle of the street? I thought that's what their bodyguards were for—transform and take the shot all in one go."

Prowl cleared his intake once.

"…I am unaware of the details of the investigation," Prowl said. "It is not my jurisdiction nor my current focus."

Liar, Jazz thought. You say one thing and your optics say another. Ain't your jurisdiction, but you sure as slag got some inside scoop there.

"It was bad," Blurr said, bringing the package out of the mailbox and ringing it up. "Footage from the security feeds got uploaded almost as soon as it happened. You can see everything from like five angles."

Prowl winced and turned his helm. "'Everything'?"

Blurr nodded once, sharing his grimace. "Yeah, I know. Acid rain's bad down there, but…that was deliberate. Ain't no other way."

"Acid rain?" Jazz asked. "Izzat what the bomb was made of?"

"Priest fell like twenty floors into a huge mess of rain," Blurr said. "It wasn't pretty. Whoever blew up the street knew what he was doing."

"And that is why all packages are being scanned," Prowl said. "A wide net to try to find any hint to the perpetrator."

Jazz paid the couple of credits for his package, then turned and offered it up at Prowl, holding it in his cupped hands.

"A hell of a wide net," Jazz said. "But Iacon's pretty huge. Gonna be hard to find just one mech."

"Indeed." Prowl put his hands under Jazz's, holding them with a surprisingly light touch, lifting them just a little closer to his scan array. "But we must try."

The scan took only a moment, a tactile crackle of static electricity that washed over the small box and over Jazz's fingers. He realized that Prowl was examining the exterior of his hands and arms, feeling for armaments and warbuild assets—thicker armor, double plating, the usual.

"Hey now," Jazz said, smiling in confusion at the deeper touch and readjusting his grip.

Instantly, Prowl's hands locked around his wrists—

Jazz didn't try to pull away. Prowl frowned, confused at his reaction.

Jazz's smile didn't fade. He turned his hand, elegantly reaching his longer fingers along the side of the box despite how much it hurt to twist in that direction, and released the catch. The top opened, revealing a small component and a sheet of clear acetate.

"Ain't nothing special about me," Jazz said. "Just an old dancer with bad optics is all."

"I don't believe that for a minute," Prowl said, "but…there does not seem to be any danger."

A moment passed. He visibly commanded himself to release Jazz's hands.

"'Bad optics'?" he echoed. "Is that why you wear the visor?"

"Partly," Jazz said, taking the component from the box. "My supplier found a good replacement part, sent it over rush. Ratchet can put it in."

"You use the free clinic?" Prowl said.

"It's cheap," Jazz said. "Mostly. Gotta save where I can."

He held up the acetate sheet for Prowl's perusal. His fingers trembled ever so slightly as the enforcer read it, lighting up the letters with an electric pulse.

"To Jazz, my best customer. I've got leads on three more parts, but this is the one I could find right now. Have your little physician friend put you together. I'll send along more once I receive confirmation that this one works. Follow your function—A3."

Prowl followed along what was obviously a bill—Optical Component 289423, series T, technical specs of common mined titanium, class rating z, energon flow lead. Core tab: 23A2. Connector .535. Cost: 985 credits.

"Three more parts?" Prowl gave a soft vent and placed the bill back in the box. "My…apologies that this intrusion was necessary. I hope you recover your far vision."

Now Jazz was surprised. "You know the components?"

"They are a favorite target of murderers to disable their victims." Prowl shrugged. "I downloaded the schematics of all known optics to better identify perpetrators based on their mode of attack."

"'Downloaded all'…?" Jazz echoed.

The amount of memory that would take…and Prowl said it like the cortex space was negligible. Like anyone could process that amount of data. What else did he have stored in there? How much was he capable of processing?

Dangerous—this mech was dangerous. Jazz wondered if he'd made a terrible error in letting the Enforcer read the bill…but no, Prowl was giving back the box and making no rush to grab him again. The bill was just a list of technical components. Nothing more.

Jazz vented out in relief, subspacing the box, and he gave Prowl a polite goodbye, waved to Blurr, and left the depot. At the door, he briefly glanced back over his shoulder, but Prowl was chatting with Blurr, nodding and apparently promising something regarding the empty seat where the regular Enforcer agent was supposed to sit.

Jazz swallowed down his nerves and rolled out, heading under the highway as he started toward Ratchet's office. And he considered his new orders. The coordinates and times were hidden in the component specs, but the devil was in Jazz's details.

Common mined titanium - the target was in charge of mining operations.

Class rating z - the target was the highest ranking senator class.

Energon flow lead — his target helmed the energon flows from the mines.

Jazz's next target was Senator Decimus.


	3. Chapter 3

Recharge, refuel, check the club finances, authorize orders of drink mixes, catch up on news, help Beachcomber chase out two mechs trying to grab his dancer—every time one of them took the shift off, his other dancer had to be on guard from handsy mechs—Jazz finally found time to collapse upstairs and begin planning an assassination.

Senator Decimus, like all high ranking officials, attended the senate in the Comitium, central temple in the middle of the Forum Iaconan, which itself was a compound of smaller satellite buildings. The forum served as the headquarters for the city's branches of the planetary government—the Fuel Arbitration, Mining Direction, Intercity Alliance, Warbuild Affairs, and the Functionist Assembly, along with multiple embassies representing the city states.

And all of the forum compound was securely guarded. It had to be. Protests were permanent fixtures along the wide road surrounding the compound. Mechs of all sizes spent some of their spare shift yelling obscenities toward the distant government, hurling demands that blurred into each other until their voices were impossible to make out. The majority congregated near the high gates—made of heavy steel composite with elaborate, gilded scrollwork, the gates dwarfed all but the tallest mechs.

Motorcades passed through them every shift, carrying senators safely through the protests up to the gates. Multiple guards stood ready, all of them armed.

Jazz studied the compound for weaknesses, ways in, routes through the substructure or ways to arrive as a cargo delivery, a business mech, a low tower mech…but there was nothing. Very little information existed on the groundplan, nothing survived long under the compound, and no one entered without extraordinarily high status. Nothing but the gate and the protests.

He studied the news footage of the protests. Mechs on low rations, mechs who had been sparked without an officially sanctioned function, mechs who could find no work as the mines became fully automated. Increasingly desperate mechs who watched the price of energon slowly rise without any means of paying for it.

Mechs with nothing to lose.

He saw how more guards were posted at the gate. How the gate was bolstered with ugly steel crossbeams for reinforcement. How the crowds grew. The death of Senator Ratbat, Fuel Arbiter of all of Cybertron, had whipped the protests into a frenzy. Mechs carried signs reading "End Fuel Arbitration" and "Burn All the Ratbats" with pictures of the late senator's burned out frame raised high. There was even a Ratbat effigy in flames.

This was no longer a protest. It was a powder keg.

…if he found a way to ignite it without being anywhere nearby.

_Mirage_ , he called on his friend's personal frequency. _I need a favor. You in the mood for a party?_

* * *

Several shifts later, Mirage summoned Jazz to serve as the private entertainment at a "little gala" he was hosting. Very small. Only a dozen or so guests. Please shine up and be ready to…serve. And as always, the invitation to join his harem was cordially extended.

It was the usual summons Mirage sent, and as usual, Jazz didn't comment on the invitation. He was already polished to gleaming, his guitar was strung and tuned, and his voice warmed up. He bid farewell to his mechs, warned Beachcomber to be on the lookout for anything unusual, and headed toward the sector above most of Iacon.

The wealthiest sector of the city was known for its towers. Jazz thought it should be known for its walls.

High barriers cut the elite mechs off from the rest of the city. The first wall was the most imposing—as tall as the city's skyscrapers, it would have been difficult to fly over. It was certainly impossible to slip beneath through the understructure. The wall went twenty levels down with sensors and cameras to find even the sneakiest mech, with regular patrols to gun him down when they found him.

So he did the only logical thing.

He went through the front gate.

Driving the familiar lane along the highway, he went past the exits and turn offs that went to the business district, the capitol building, the senate hall. The highway narrowed to ten lanes, then five, then two wide roads rising up several levels, curving almost a mile as the speed limit dropped from fifty to thirty, to twenty, then the slow roll up to the gates. He came alongside the access lane and transformed, submitting to the brief scans to show that he was unarmed.

"Jazz," he said to identify himself. "At personal request of His Lordship Mirage of Tower SubRosa."

The gate attendant made a show of flipping through the holorolodex. Behind him, five guards stood with rifles unslung, two standing at the ready, two lazily lowered at the pavement, and one scanning the airspace.

"Jazz, Jazz…Jazz…" the attendant mused, scrolling down. "Huh, there you are. Entertainment for the guests. You know the way?"

"Turn right, follow the access lane, fifth left, keep to the staff corridors and use the terminal lift."

"See that you stick to the route—security doesn't like servants who forget themselves." The bot unlocked two key codes, then leaned back for the fifth guard to reach around and type in the last code. "Remember to check out here."

Jazz gave him a nod, already transforming and rolling through the gate that opened just wide enough to let him through.

The long lanes of the tower district were polished crystal lined by glowing lights. The towers rose into the clouds, scoured clean of grime by the rain, and the tallest of them loomed dozens of levels high. The towers also stretched down into Cybertron itself, widening foundations that provided structure and support to the workers and staff that served in the grime and dust. But here, up in the sky, the walls and struts shone like mirrors.

Jazz took a hard right turn and followed the servant's lane around the edge, behind the curling crystal undergrowth. He kept a slow pace, keenly aware of the turrets perched on the top of the wall, no less than three canons aimed on his aft. At the proper turn, he transformed and walked up to the staff entrance, checked in again, and was escorted to the elevator.

"His Lordship Mirage," said the femme taking him along. "He is on the fortieth floor. Please wait to be allowed entrance."

He nodded. The doors closed as the elevator began rising, programmed to take him up exactly forty flights.

It stopped in the space between the second and third, and the doors opened to the maintenance shaft. Jazz saw heavy pipes, insulation, labeled wiring panels, and Hound leaning against the wall, arms folded, pedes crossed.

A hologram of Jazz flashed from the projector on Hound's shoulder. Under cover of that beam, Jazz and Hound switched places silent, and Hound took his place, a perfect image of Jazz as the elevator began to rise again.

Five minutes.

As his frame turned black and his visor colored silver, Jazz transformed and drove through the maintenance shaft, found the ladder that went all the way to the top of the tower. He began climbing, cursing in a whisper when the lights suddenly went dark. The systems around him went silent.

A power outage? Did Mirage think that was helpful? Whatever—the outage gave him precious seconds as Hound waited in the elevator. Jazz kept climbing—one minute, two—

Three minutes in, he reached a hatch and lifted it wide. Anyone watching might have seen the tiniest movement and a shadow against the catwalk that ringed the tower. The ledge was specifically for maintenance bots repairing the surface from small comet strikes, rain that found a crack, and changing the lights when bulbs went out every thousand years or so.

And now the catwalk served for an assassin pulling five components from his armor. The barrel from his forearm, the spring and trigger mechanism from his coolant system. The stock came from the support under his pede. And the battery pack…

He carefully reached beneath his hood, running his fingers along the center of his protoform. He found the switch, traced a key swipe, and was granted access to his spark case. Attached on the side was a redundant battery pack to keep his spark regulated when it pulsed irregularly. He pulled the battery and slid it into place.

A rifle with one shot.

There was no time to waste. The tower was still dark, but the ground floors one by one were beginning to light up again.

He dropped to one knee and steadied the barrel on the railing. His visor showed the targeting solution, magnified, recalculated, magnified, recalculated, magnified. The shot had to travel past the towers, down past the highway, down into the business sector, past the busy traffic, past the protesting mechs holding signs and yelling, right into the heavy lock of the Senatorial Portico gate.

There were too many mechs walking by, too much jostling and sign waving and guards behind barricades holding the crowd back.

Jazz waited.

Held his vents.

Stilled.

The guards began to move, drawing rifles, blasters, and energy swords. As one, they began to push the crowd back. The motorcade carrying Senator Decimus was coming down the long road, lights flashing, and the guards prepared to receive him safely through the crowd of screaming mechs. There were punches thrown, rounds fired into the air to startle mechs back.

The space cleared.

Jazz fired.

He had just enough time to confirm that he'd shot through the latch of the gate before he dissembled the rifle. The battery pack went back under his hood. The rest of the rifle he took apart as he ran, holding it in pieces in his compartment as he transformed and drove to where the lift would arrive.

He came to a halt just as the doors opened. His mirror image smiled to see him venting hard.

_Five minutes, huh?_ Hound asked as they traded places again.

_Hard to aim past a mob,_ Jazz grumbled, standing in the elevator, hands folded in front of himself again.

_The power outage was m'lord's idea,_ Hound said. _If you thought he was insufferable before…_

Jazz groaned deep inside himself as the elevator rose and the hologram faded. Two floors up, and the doors opened.

The funny thing was, for a tower mech, Mirage was restrained in his tastes.

Steel polished to a mirror's reflection covered the floor. White quartz lined the seams of the walls, highlighting silver scrollwork etched into the domed ceiling. The deep blue banners of Tower Subrosa waved and billowed along the floor-length arches—allowing in the clean, unpolluted breeze.

Through the arches, the planet sparkled, quiet so far below them.

"Jazz, life of my party," Mirage said, raising a hand no less imperial for the hard kerosene in the crystal cube. "And not a moment too soon."

Properly acknowledged, Jazz came in on nigh-silent steps. He bowed briefly to the mechs assembled before him, a dozen elites in gleaming armor, flowing silks, and bored optics. They sat on deep cushions around a low table of smooth geode decorated with crystal finely carved to resemble organic leaves and blossoms. And all of them watched Jazz either openly or out of the corner of their optics.

"My Lord," Jazz said, cataloging each attendee as he passed the table. "I dropped everything to answer your call."

Mirage did not sit on a cushion. As host of the party, he reclined on a broad divan, reaching his free hand up to Jazz.

"I hope I didn't inconvenience you," Mirage said. "But you simply won't join my harem, so I have to keep bothering you like this."

Jazz took his hand and kissed the back, dropping to a knee beside him.

"Ain't no bother at all, m'lord. Just ain't shiny enough to fit in 'mong your types."

"Oh, listen to the little thing, 'Rajah," one of the guests said. "He's trying to spare your reputation."

"Can't spare what's barely there," said a femme.

"Well, someone has to care about it," said a third. "Mirage has certainly given up."

"Honestly, 'Raja, bad enough you slum down there—did you have to bring the slum up here?"

Jazz smiled as if he heard nothing.

Mirage's look didn't waver from his tipsy joy.

"Ignore the heretics," Mirage said, pressing a kiss to Jazz's palm. "Nevermind that their harem mechs aren't as shiny as my little hard-to-get. At least entertainment is an actual function in society."

Awkward silence greeted that remark. Jazz didn't dare glance at the rest of Mirage's so-called friends. He saw them only in his peripheral vision, the edge of what his visor could catch. He recognized none of them, tower mechs who never set pede out of their courtyard, running their business from their gilded cages.

Except…

Mirage, you crazy glitch, he thought.

At the far corner, seated closest to Mirage, sat two decidedly non-tower mechs. Oh, they were certainly high end. But the red and gray bot, so small that he could have been carried by any of the mechs at the table, should not have been there. He fit in well enough—polished, bright, as clean as the rest, but he kept his optics on the table and barely moved as if he was afraid to catch anyone's attention.

The other mech was Prowl.

Jazz would have raged at Mirage except he didn't know if the others could catch their conversation on his friend's personal frequency. So he simply quirked a smile and waited.

"You walk on treacherous ground, Mirage," the femme said slowly. "In mixed company, no less."

Prowl didn't smile, and he hadn't touched the cube in front of him. But he did tilt his helm in acknowledgment.

"I have only one function while in Iacon," he assured them. "Everything else falls outside of my jurisdiction. I don't even have my recorder suite engaged."

"What Enforcer does?" said a guest, with a knowing little smile.

Prowl vented in. He flashed a brief, strained smile and finally took a drink, hiding his soured expression behind the cube.

The mood reestablished, the light chatter began again. Jazz permitted Mirage a second kiss, this one at his lips and deeper, insistent, a lord showing the lesser mech that they were there to entertain the master's wants. His hand cupped Jazz's cheek, running a thumb under the visor, teasing at the edge.

"Are you ready to sing for me?" Mirage whispered.

Jazz's answer was a satisfied purr of his engines.

The lights dimmed. The chatter grew soft, then quiet. As the lights continued to drop, the walls revealed tiny points of light. At first it looked like they were twinkling, but it was soon apparent that Jazz had stood and began making his way past the wall, coming to the small dais to one side. As he stepped up, the single light above began to glow, washing him in gold light.

Prowl sat straight.

Something had changed.

This was not Jazz.

At least, it wasn't the Jazz that he'd been shown over the past couple shifts. That Jazz had been guarded, cynical—every word carefully chosen, his demeanor deliberately crafted the same way an actor would.

This mech stood on the dais as if he'd been sparked for it. As if he hadn't heard the slurs. Jazz vented deep as the spotlight separated him out from the room. In his own world, he stood straighter, his doorwings lifted as if buoyed by the spare strings rising from the instrument that appeared in his hands.

There was a seat behind him, a small perch for a bird in a cage. He leaned back against it, one pede shifted up, and he lowered his helm. The strings deepened, found a rhythm.

Long notes. Slow strum.

_Lightning's flashing overhead_   
_Come, my spark, and find me soon_   
_I've lost myself in all my rain_

And this wasn't the usual strong, repetitive beat of the club or of the songs on the state produced radio. This wasn't a mech with a soundboard or the hundred chrys-guitars in unison.

Just one chrys-guitar, just one voice—low, strong, smooth.

_Wandering alone on empty roads_   
_Save me from the burning flood_   
_This lying spark ain't know my name_

Mirage's friends had fallen silent, held in thrall by that voice reverberating through the dome. Even the faint sounds of their vents through high end filters had gone quiet as they all held their breath. Behind them, Mirage's optics brightened in satisfaction and he sat a little straighter, exchanging a look with the red and gray mech at the table.

_Meet me where the highways cross_   
_Or count my spark among the lost_   
_Devil from hell got hold of me_   
_And I can't count this silver cost_

And on the dais, Jazz poured himself out, feeling the strings vibrate under his fingers, letting his spark pulse form the beat, lightly drawing out a note and then swinging down again. He counted the rhythm and considered where the senator's motorcade must have been by now, driving through the mob of mechs at the gate.

_Clouds swing low rolling overhead_   
_Weary from running under skies all red_   
_Storm wash me clean, ain't no escape_

Now the motorcade was transforming into the senator, his body guards, personal driver and entourage. They would form a circle around the senator. He would glare at the mob as less than grime on his pedes. His look whipped the mob into frustrated shrieks. He was so near, and yet with so many bodyguards, his and the planetary guard, actual warbuilds…

Now he turned, and the gate pulled open just enough to allow him in, and then to allow in one or two bodyguards. Just two. The rest would have to join the protective barricade to intimidate the mechs back. They couldn't afford to shoot and ignite this powder keg. Just slam the gate shut and lock it—

Jazz's song turned into a mournful groan for a long moment.

The gate would not lock. It bounced back, bounced back wide, swung open at the worst possible moment. The senator, caught between the safety of the Portico chambers and the wild frenzy of the mob. The bodyguards, spread too thin.

_Saint, sinner, all the things I've done_   
_Can't ask forgiveness for the road I run_   
_I set myself down on this way_

The mob lunged forward. The guards started to fire, but there were too many, too many—they sank under the mob's hands and pedes, crushed and still. There was no one individual in this attack—the mob was a single machine rolling forward, speeding down the last guard, rolling up on the senator as he ran, hands grabbing, holding, digging down into his armor to pull, pull, pull—

_Meet me where the highways cross_   
_Or count my spark among the lost_   
_Devil from hell got hold of me_   
_And I can't count this silver cost_

Jazz brought the song to its close, a subtle flourish, as unhurried as oil dripping from a torn cord. As slow as a helm torn from its frame and rolling to a stop. His optics closed. He vented out and stilled.

There was a brief lull. No applause.

Prowl stared with wide optics. He'd never seen anything like that. Was that what private entertainers did? How had Jazz done that? And what exactly had Jazz done to bring out that feeling in him? Prowl turned off his recording suite. He'd started it with the first strings. He would examine it later. It was beyond calculating now.

The guests all sat back, processing what they'd heard.

"Whatever 'Raja's offered you," said the femme, "I'll double it."

Mirage gave a wounded gasp.

"You don't know what I've offered," Mirage said. "Besides, you said it yourself. You don't want a piece of the slum in your pretty gold tower."

She glared at him from the corner of her optic. "Trust a glitched hedonist to find this down there. You wouldn't—"

Prowl suddenly sat straight, receiving a message. And then he was up on his pedes, running to the elevator, pressing against the door as if that could make it open faster, hitting the button too many times, vanishing as he was summoned in a futile attempt to save the senator.

"What on…?" Mirage murmured. "You'd think someone died from the way he ran out."

"I think someone did." One of his friends stood, went to the edge of the dome and pushed aside the banners, looking through the arch to the streets far below. "Turn on your news feed. I think…yes, you can just barely make it out from here."

"Make out what?" the femme asked, taking a long sip without moving. "Another power outage?"

"Indeed," said the mech in front of her. "Truly, there's nothing out there that we don't have in here."

"Not quite true anymore." The mech at the arch looked over his shoulder, a little dazed. "We don't have a riot tearing a senator apart."

In the stunned silence that followed, they tuned into the news feed, listened to the senate reporter's horrified description of what was left of Decimus, the security forces now pouring out of the rest of the compound and firing into the crowd. In the unedited broadcast, the senate guards cut down the mechs closest to the gray frame. A handful of enraged mechs at the very front pushed forward, climbing over the frames of executed protesters, only to be shot and reel backward in broad splashes of oil and sheared steel.

The mob hesitated, still taking fire at the edges, trembled on the cusp of charging forward. Withering plasma fire wiped away the front mechs like grime off of steel. As mechs went down without gaining an inch, the mob broke and ran.

In the retreat, more mechs fell before they could escape the compound, gunned down from behind. The rest poured out onto the street, transformed, sped away and scattered in all directions. The security forces went as far as the fence and a few steps beyond, firing into the last stragglers and spectators.

By the time Mirage looked up from the carnage, turning off the feed with a grimace, his tower was nearly empty. The elevator closed over the femme giving him a dazed wave of her hand, and then he was left with Jazz, now subspacing his guitar, and one last mech at the table.

"Well…" Mirage sighed, setting down his empty glass and flopping back on his divan. "An unpleasant end to an unpleasant party."

"If you don't like 'em none," Jazz said, "why'd you invite them?"

"They're not usually this bad," Mirage said. "Please…please don't do anything terrible to them. They really are trying. Other tower mechs would've flounced off in a huff."

Jazz was about to shrug off Mirage's concern when he noticed that the little red and grey mech was still seated, quietly contemplating the untouched cube of kerosene before him. Jazz tilted his helm at the mech, raising an optic ridge.

"Ah. Yes. Um." Mirage sat straight, putting his pedes on the ground. "Jazz, I wanted to introduce you. Please don't be cross. He came to me—"

"RedAlert," the mech said in a tight voice, as if he expected to be hit. "I told Mirage to invite me. I needed to see you."

Jazz frowned, first at Mirage and then, when he only shrugged helplessly, at the mech who wouldn't look at him.

"Because…?" Jazz prompted.

"Because you're doing something good," RedAlert said. "Even if it doesn't seem like it. I don't know who's pulling your strings, but Decimus needed to die, and so did Ratbat, and adding a priest wasn't wasted effort even if it wasn't someone higher up. But you've attracted attention to yourself and—"

RedAlert hadn't looked at him, but he seemed to know that Jazz had stood straight and started walking toward him. He froze, shutting his optics tight.

"If you kill me, my files with all the footage go straight to that Enforcer's private frequency. He gave me his card—it's all primed to go on a killswitch."

Jazz stopped. Flexed his hands. Glowered at Mirage as if to say he was the one who'd gotten them into this mess. And then he went around the table and sat on the broad cushion directly across from him.

"Well then, good thing I got no clue what you're talking about. S'pose you go on with all'a those wild tales—meanwhile, I need me a drink."

"We can speak safely in here," RedAlert nodded once. "Tower security is good, but Mirage is part of Tower SubRosa—openly hedonistic and devoted patrons of the arts, but secretly involves itself in blackmail, political intrigue and now the resistance movement."

Jazz glanced sideways at Mirage, who vented and sunk a little lower in his divan.

"That's how the little glitch messaged me," Mirage grumbled. "All but blackmailed me into inviting him. The nerve! To have me on the other side of a threatening message…"

The elevator dinged. Jazz half-turned, expecting Enforcers to come charging out, but only Hound appeared, nodding once at Jazz and taking his customary place behind Mirage.

"We're on full lockdown," Hound said, then looked at Jazz. "If you want to get out of here any time soon, I'll have to walk you out to the main gate."

"They expect me to sign out," Jazz started.

"I'll call and let them know my guests will be late leaving," Mirage said.

"Great," Jazz said, settling down more comfortably and turning his attention back on RedAlert. "So you think m'lord here is a spy extraordinaire. Who'm I?"

"…I'm not sure," RedAlert said. "I've searched. There are no spark records on you except what's been falsified. Very good fakes, by the way, almost perfect. Your original designation is most likely not Jazz, and while you are clearly high end,, you have managed to hide under the persona of the owner of a night club in the fifth quarter. Watching you is difficult at best and impossible when you use the traffic for cover—it was the drive through the business quarter that shook the cassette."

Jazz stared at him. Reset his optics. He considered feigning ignorance, but—

"The drive?" he echoed. "I did that just to steady my nerves. How'd that scrap follow me that far? I looped all through the city—I changed my paint like five times."

"The business sector has heavy shielding, multiple levels, and overburdened communications lines." RedAlert half-shrugged. "The feed glitched several times. You lucked out."

Jazz pressed his mouth flat.

"Was that cassette yours?"

RedAlert shook his helm. "No. I've seen it before. I've felt its master before. I…"

RedAlert paused, looking down at something. He vented out roughly.

"Damn. I'm not going to have enough time. Look, you've attracted attention. I can help, but I can't afford to reveal myself, either. I'll contact you if it's safe—"

"Why?" Jazz said. "Who are you?"

"I think I know what your master unit is playing at," RedAlert said. "And I agree with him. I can't act directly, but I don't want his cybercat's paw being compromised before you finish. Please do not get killed before I can—"

RedAlert's frame shimmered, glitched, and vanished. Something silver glimmered and lay on the cushion where he'd been sitting, beside one of Prowl's cards. Hound stepped close, bent, scanned it, and then picked it up.

"Hard light hologram," Hound said, turning the small projector over in his hand. "Ran outta battery."

"That's why he didn't have a drink," Mirage said. "Oh good. I was afraid the vintage was off."

"Mirage…" Jazz took a long, deep vent, putting his hands on the table. He lowered his helm. "Y'know, y'ain't gotta keep up the act around us."

Mirage shrugged and sank down to the floor across from him, curling up on the cushion. Hound came to stand dutifully behind him.

"After too long, the act starts to become real, I'm afraid. Half espionage, half, ah, hedonist."

As if to prove the point, he lifted the untouched cube.

"So what do we do now?" Mirage asked.

"…you got no clue who he is?" Jazz asked. "RedAlert…you think was his real name?"

"I haven't had time to look. But if I had to guess…probably." Mirage shrugged again. "I'd lay credits that he's wiped every trace of himself. A real ghost in the machine."

"What'd he say to you?" Jazz asked. "To get an invite?"

Mirage quietly swirled his energon, gazing at the purple-pink sparkles.

"He quoted exactly what Langton offered to buy Hound," Mirage said. "And what I said when he offered it."

Jazz looked at Hound, who met his gaze and shrugged.

"What's so threatening about that?" Jazz asked.

Mirage scoffed, his light voice belied by the way his hand tightened around the cube in his hand, tightened to trembling.

"Oh, only that Langton's offer was made here, in my own tower, in my own chambers. There are no transmitters in here. There is nothing letting out a signal. I've checked this room myself, I've searched the walls, the lighting, the—"

Mirage's voice rose higher, and the cube began to groan under the stress. Before it could shatter, Hound reached down and put his hand on Mirage's shoulder.

Mirage vented. And he leaned back against Hound's pedes, shutting his optics.

"Anyway. That means he can hear anything. He could be hearing us right now. And he wanted a 'friendly' meeting with 'that cat's paw'."

He put the glass down and leaned more fully against Hound.

"I'd already called that enforcer in for you. I'm sorry, Jazz. I didn't think…"

"Yeah, but that tends to work for you," Jazz sighed. "And…hell. He ain't wrong. Even if they catch this little cybercat, they still won't catch my master unit."

Mirage opened his optics just enough to see him through the slits.

"Jazz…"

Jazz didn't move.

"I've never asked…because I approve of what you're doing, but…"

Jazz pretended to be enthralled by the sky through the arches.

"…who's pulling your strings?"

Jazz met his look silently.

His refusal was solved by the rising growl of thunder. Overhead, a dozen jets roared overhead, low enough to rattle the walls. The shadows of wings passed across the arches, moving over the three of them.

"Sounds like they scrambled a unit," Hound said. "Coneheads by the sound of 'em. Scaring the protestors back into their holes for awhile."

"How can you tell them apart?" Mirage muttered. "Warbuilds are so loud."

"S'just the different types of engines," Hound said. "Don't worry. I'm here."

Jazz huffed and left the table, heading to the arch and watching as the jets circled the city, coming back down the main thoroughfare, chasing away the last stragglers anywhere near the senate compound. With the chaos cleared and with a little magnification, Jazz saw the gate hanging wide, the dead guards, the dead protesters.

There was a smear of oil and glittering purple energon among tiny dots of steel. What was left of Senator Decimus.

Mission accomplished.

He stared at the mess, his jaw tightening. He put the pieces of the rifle back into their hiding spots. Then he turned away, heading to the elevator. Mirage and Hound said nothing, too caught up in each other. He went down to the first floor, waited for the chamberlain to alert security, then took the long way around to the main entrance, feeling the turrets trained on his hood the whole time. He checked out, submitting to one more scan as all of the guards were now on alert. Finally he could go on his way.

The highways were almost empty. For the first time in ages, he drove in utter silence.


	4. Chapter 4

Iacon ground to a halt, placed under lockdown that saw every mech confined to their recharge bays. Access ramps to the great highway locked immediately. The fifty lanes of traffic sped by, grateful they hadn't exited into the city yet. Shipments and cargo continued on to distant Polyhex, business shut down, and the flow of energon ground to a halt. Nothing moved except the senate as it clenched its collective fist to smash into the city.

The Senate Guard swept through Iacon in a show of force, carrying the Prime's banners as they marched through the business district and the surrounding apartment complexes. A senator was dead, and woe to anyone who harbored the criminals responsible. 

The curfew imposed on the lower sectors, slums, and pleasure district kept mechs confined to their residences. Arrest was almost impossible to avoid. All frames, alt-modes, and functions were registered with the government. After studying footage of the murder, Senate guards matched faceplates to names and went door to door. Some of the mechs at the protest had fled into the substructure, to take their chances among the acid rain and other dangers. But many remained.

Jazz figured the wisest course of action was whatever an innocent mech would do. The club always needed cleaning. He put the news feed on the main monitor, just in case anything developed. Then he gathered all the spilled cubes, put the chairs on the tables, and began mopping the floors.

Which was how Prowl found him, alone in a dark corner. 

Jazz didn't startle when he heard the front door open. He hadn't locked up in case one of his mechs risked sneaking in. And he recognized the steps—familiar, unhurried, confident in their right to be there. Jazz kept working, dunking the mop in solvent and working grime out of the seams between the tiles.

"Jazz," Prowl said by way of greeting. He glanced around the club. Fluorescent lights glowed overhead, flickering unsteadily. "…oh."

Jazz wrung out the mop, dunked it again. He glanced over his shoulder.

"Sure different with the lights on, huh?" He sighed and kept working. "Can't see the dirt when it's dark."

Prowl heard the self-deprecation in his voice. He did not immediately respond, taking a long moment to study the stage, the bar and its mirror and drinks, the DJ booth and soundboard in the corner above the dance floor. Now he could see the black ceiling supports, the long ventilation ducts, and the catwalk that Blaster would use to reach his perch. There were scuffs on the stage. Some of the chairs were mismatched. The plastic of the floor tracklights had yellowed with age.

"I was going to say it felt empty." Prowl pulled up the recording of the club while it was in full swing, with music, lights, and dancing. "You do well with what you have to work with."

That pulled a laugh out of Jazz. He put the mop back and leaned against it, giving Prowl a once-over.

"Now that's the most charitable I've ever heard someone put it."

He wasn't subtle in looking over Prowl. In the harsh light, he saw the heavy grime on Prowl's pedes—good thing he hadn't done the hall yet—his unsteady sway, the way he leaned more heavily on one of the chair backs. Prowl reset his optics too quickly, and his vents were audibly heavy, laboring in his filtration system.

"You look like you ain't had a chance to recharge," Jazz commented. 

Prowl lowered his helm slightly, nodding once. 

"I just started my fourth shift. I was going to rest after Mirage—ah. After the party. But then the incident happened, and…"

Prowl's voice trailed off. Jazz followed his look toward the bar. Between the ceiling and the top of the mirror, two large monitors would normally display laser mandalas to accompany Blaster's music. Today, they had an oversized view of live footage as the Senate guards patrolled the streets, searching for anyone from the protests.

The news showed the arrest of the first mech found—an Empty, already stripped down to his protoform, missing armor and his wheels. He'd even had to sell his faceplate, leaving him with a skeletal mass of exposed gears and joints as he was dragged out from the highway underpass he'd recharged beneath.

The Senate guard stomped a heavy pede on his back, pressing him down into the grime and the last slick of acid rain in the gutter. Then came two rounds—one plasma bullet through the pelvic support, then one between the shoulders. With arms and pedes methodically disabled, the Empty was now dragged, shrieking, behind the unit of guards.

Bringing up the rear, several Enforcers walked behind, merely in tow, additional hands if something went wrong. Praxians all of them, they kept their door wings pulled in tight, walked with no expression. They all looked like they were about to witness an execution…which they probably were. The end of the road for any arrested mechs was undoubtedly the smelting pool.

Jazz straightened.

"Wait…ain't that you up there?"

Too weary to stand, Prowl pulled the chair out and sank down into it.

"Yes," he said. "That was a half a shift ago. We were just released."

Jazz frowned, but he didn't argue. The broadcast said the footage was live. Instead it was on quite a delay. If he had to hazard a guess, it would be to avoid showing anyone escaping or the empty recharge bays they burst into. Cybertron's News Network would only show what the Senate would allow.

"Well, not that I mind the visit," Jazz said, "but I figure you're more in the mood for recharge and refuel."

Prowl waved one hand. That wasn't important.

" Mirage said he'd found something for me, and—but then this happened, and…"

So that was how Mirage had lured Prowl up to the soiree. But neither Mirage nor Jazz had expected this reaction from the Senate, and now Prowl was without his bait. The tower district was locked up—no one in or out.

Jazz looked at Prowl for a moment. The Enforcer sagged in his seat, optics half shut, with the faint shimmer of heatwaves off his armor. He was probably low on coolant. And yet here he was, following a lead in the scrap of time he had.

Jazz had wanted to save the data packet for a little insurance in case Prowl came crawling through his business. But there was also something to be gained by establishing friendly ties with an Enforcer, especially a Special Investigator, while the city went insane.

"Give me a moment," Jazz said, heading behind the bar. "No reason we can't be civilized about this."

With a furrowed optic ridge, Prowl watched him pull two cubes and prepare a slurry of shimmering blue energon and opalescent white coolant that floated on the top, foaming in a mild chemical reaction. Adding a handful of amethyst dust to the top, Jazz brought both drinks over and sat down, putting the second cube in front of Prowl.

Prowl hesitated.

"I'm not sure I can continue taking these in good conscience," he said. "There are regulations against gifts and exchanges with…"

His voice trailed off. With criminals, fugitives, and persons of interest went unsaid.

"Now now, no need to go borrowing trouble," Jazz said. "I am assuming I'm not a criminal under arrest."

Prowl half-smiled. "No. But you are an informant—well, a potential informant, and as such, an automatic person of interest—"

"Well then, there ain't no reason to avoid a drink or two," Jazz said. "I am always interesting. It's my function. And I think I know what that drunk tower glitch was gonna give you."

He brought the data packet out of subspace, laying it on the table. He also set his recording to play on the monitors. 

"But, uh, better drink up first. It ain't something to watch on empty fuel cells."

He was gratified that Prowl listened, watching the screens over the top of his cube.

As the scene of illegal street fighting played out, Jazz stared into his cube as the amethyst bits melted into the mix. But his look slowly rose, hidden behind his visor, to watch the expression on Prowl's face. First came the announcer's voice, the shaky camera of the mech jostled by warbuilds as he made his way to the ring. Then the challenger's introduction. Then the reigning champion, the cheers, the explosion of shrieking steel and oil.

Prowl didn't flinch. His optics narrowed as he focused on the dead mech, then widened as he caught the flash of the purple decal.

"So prominently displayed on the hood," Prowl murmured. "At least, I think it's a hood. But if these are all warbuilds, his altform could be anything. And a mace…that isn't common."

The video ended. Jazz slid the packet the rest of the way to Prowl, where it vanished into the Enforcer's hand. 

"It's Tarn," Jazz said as if it explained everything. "I don't know how much it'll help you, but—"

"But it isn't Tarn," Prowl said with wide-optics. "It's Kaon."

"…what?" Jazz looked at the screen, but it had frozen on the last frame of the understructure. "That's just…mech, they're all…"

His voice trailed off. Yes, the announcer had said the victor was from Tarn, but the challenger was Nyon. And Tarn wasn't the only place that had underground fighting going on. 

"Tarn is known for its illegal gladiator circuit," Prowl said. "But the announcer is a Praxian, and there are civilian mechs mingled among the warbuilds. Tarn was warbuild since its inception—there are some civilians, but to go among such heavy mechs who aren't used to small vehicles? When they're focused on the fight? That's asking to get stepped on. It might have been Nyon, but Nyon has no levels in their understructure that would allow warbuilds without considerable demolition, and that arena is too well supported for anything but original construction. And—"

Jazz listened with half an audio. He recorded the conversation, following what Prowl was saying, but he was fascinated by how the Enforcer came alive in his seat. Prowl sat straight, replaying the video and pointing out the identifying features of the dark support struts, the embossed patterns on the steel floor, dual-railings for both civilians and warbuilds. Prowl's mouth strayed into the most sincere smile Jazz had seen on him.

Jazz guessed it was less due to the energon and more because of the challenge presented.

"—finally there is the degraded condition of the recording itself. Pixel loss, sound distortion, color loss…they must be near a source of substantial heat or radiation. Warbuild armor is designed to mitigate this, but the civilians do not seem negatively effected. They must be accustomed and modified to some degree…"

Prowl's voice faded and trailed off. He cleared his intake, rumbling his engine.

"My apologies. I know I tend to ramble."

"Not at all." Jazz shook his helm. "You got all that in one go. I never would'a realized any of that."

Jazz took a long sip. What he was sharing wasn't the highest priced energon, but it was still refined, and he wanted it to last.

"Recorders usually go out of their way to hide where an illegal vid is made," Prowl said.

Jazz vented in, shifting in his seat.

"Of course, turning over the vid is not illegal," Prowl rushed to say. "Information is extremely valuable and appreciated."

Jazz waved off his assurances. "Not a thing, not a thing. Although it's good to hear you say it. Just…why is this decal so important?"

Prowl stared at him for a long moment. 

"Do you serve warbuilds here?"

With a soft sound of understanding, Jazz leaned back in his seat, rapping the table with his knuckles.

"So that's it."

He waved a hand around at the club, motioning at the low seats, the thin catwalk, the elevator no larger than would fit a van.

"Everything here is up to Iacon code. Nothing rated over ten tons. Not that there's many warbuilds to cater to."

Prowl nodded once. "There isn't a strong military presence here, save for the reserves kept on the outskirts. There might be some living in the understructure, but they would not have an easy time in such cramped quarters. And it is…heresy."

The word sounded strange coming from Prowl. He grimaced as he said it, and he finished the cube as if to wash the taste from his mouth.

"Kaon manages," Jazz said. "Somehow."

"Only because they keep their living quarters separate," Prowl said. "And even then, the priests must regularly enforce adherence to the commandments. Of course warbuilds would chafe under their restrictions."

"'The glory of Tarn'," Jazz recalled from the video. 

"Tarn is a now another word for warbuild," Prowl said. "You will inform me if you discover anything else?"

Jazz appreciated that Prowl framed that as a question.

"Sure. If, uh, if you promise no one ever finds out 'bout me or Mirage doing the talking."

"I understand," Prowl said with a nod. "If you want, I can arrange for a fake raid, perhaps make a show arrest."

Jazz almost rejected that out of hand—even the semblance of a raid meant Enforcers scanning things and tripping over sensitive material. Accidents could happen, and perhaps the Enforcers would prefer something to hold over his helm instead of relying on his loyalty. Prowl seemed okay so far. Jazz wouldn't trust any other Enforcer.

But there were more pleasant ways to deflect what was possibly a sincere offer of goodwill.

"Now now, everyone knows this club's just a good time. We bring in enough to get by. But one raid and all the unscrupulous types'll start thinking I'll deal junk on the side." He shook his helm—his smile never changed. "Besides, we serve all types. The occasional Enforcer's just as welcome, too."

Prowl narrowed his optics. Was this an attempt at bribery? Jazz had offered nothing untoward, merely stating that Prowl was allowed in the door. 

No. Jazz had said that Prowl was _welcome_ at the door. 

"Not many establishments would be happy to have an Enforcer visit," Prowl said.

"Not many honest Enforcers on the beat," Jazz said. "'Sides, you already heard me sing once. Stick around, might see it again."

"You perform here?" Prowl visibly reset, sitting straight and facing Jazz. "On stage?"

Jazz gave him a look. "Well, it is my club."

"No, I didn't…I was in here before. What you performed for Mirage was nothing like the music I heard playing in here."

"Oh, that. Yeah, Blaster gets the floor most shifts, but on special occasions, when I have time, the inclination, a little special motivation…I take the floor."

"Like…what you sang for Mirage?"

There was no mistaking the way Prowl stared at him. Jazz saw that look in every crowd hungry for more of what he was serving. His prey had hold of the bait. Time to gently, gently reel him in.

"Sometimes." Jazz let his smile soften, and he turned his helm so that he seemed self-conscious about being watched. Behind his visor, he studied Prowl. "Sometimes it's something everyone's listening to. Sometimes…just whatever wants to come out of me."

"…I think I would like to hear that," Prowl said. "What you performed…it was—I don't know. I don't know how to put that in words. They never played anything like that on the radio."

"The big orchestra pieces are what's sanctioned," Jazz said. "Little things, they don't get approved for the airwaves."

"That isn't—"

Prowl caught himself. 

"That is…the greater good for the most mechs performing their function. I admit, if I were to listen to you while I work, I would be very distracted."

"That's quite the compliment," Jazz said, pitching his voice lower. "If this lockdown lets up anytime soon, I think everyone'll be more in the mood for something quiet."

"The lockdown will not last much longer," Prowl said. "Just…be careful until then. I will mark this facility as searched. I can at least spare you the rough handling that a senate guard might subject you to."

Jazz's lips parted in surprise. "That…thank you. Are they coming this way?"

"They'll be down this street in a joor," Prowl said. "Just keep cleaning. If it's already marked, they should just send an Enforcer or two inside to check."

"Gotcha. Thanks, Prowl. I mean it."

Prowl tilted his helm at the frozen video on the screen. "I cannot break laws or regulations, but informants should be protected as best I can."

He bid Jazz farewell, rolling away with the data packet in his subspace. Jazz watched him go, not toward the city but toward the slums. To warn the empties? To meet with other informants? Or to investigate leads while the senate guard kept the city clamped shut?

Jazz turned off the video and hid the high priced energon and ingredients under the tiles beneath the bar,. He was still mopping the main dance floor when the senate guard arrived. True to Prowl's word, their search was quick—they didn't even notice the seam in the walls for the elevator. And they only took a few handfuls of cheap grade energon and coolant. 

Jazz made no complaint. He stood still and waited, watching them from behind his visor. There were only two guards looking around—the one in charge stood next to him just in case the lone bot tried to take out three Senate Guard on his own.

"You're one of that special investigator's," the commander said. "Registration says you're an entertainer."

Knowing better than to speak, Jazz nodded twice and didn't meet his look. His kept his helm respectfully lowered.

"What kind of entertainer?"

The leer wasn't as pronounced as it could have been. Jazz judged it to be curiosity, faint interest. A probe, nothing more.

"Singing and dancing," Jazz said. "Never was much good at the…other stuff."

"Really?" The guard looked at him a moment longer, then shrugged and began hustling his mechs out. "Ah well. You'll fit that stick-up-the-aft to a T then."

Jazz didn't move. The senate guard were satisfied—no contraband, no warbuilds, and no hint of an attitude. They swept out with little comment, and Jazz noticed that they hadn't even dragged in all that much grime.

He spent the rest of the shift catching up on cleaning. Replacing burned out diodes. Polishing the mirror. Rinsing out cubes. And thinking.

On a whim, as he locked up the doors and set the alarms, he looked around the club again. He'd shut off all the lights so that there was only the glow of the machinery on standby. There was Blaster's soundboard and radio hookup, the video system, and the security monitors. Nothing was patched into the planetary communication grid. Nothing should have been transmitting out.

He took the elevator up to the private and flopped back on the long couch.

"Primus help me," he said out loud, "if I sound like a glitch for trying this, but…you out there? Red?"

He waited a long moment. As nothing happened, he muttered something about losing his circuits and settled in for a recharge.

The video monitor across the room crackled on with a hiss of static. Red Alert appeared, his image skipping frames as signal interference flashed behind him.

"Not Primus, but the next best thing," Red Alert said. "I didn't think you'd ask so openly."

Now that Jazz had Red Alert there, he wasn't sure what to say.

"Been a long shift, figured what the hell?" Jazz didn't bother sitting up. "Didn't think you were actually listening."

"You had that enforcer in with you. Of course I was listening. He's dangerous. I hope you realize that."

"I know, I know…"

"Even I hadn't figured out that it was Kaon. To grasp that so quickly after just one look—you better hope he never sees you in your other paint jobs. He'll recognize your frame-visor combo immediately."

That turned Jazz's mood even worse.

"Bot, what do you even care? Why all'a this sneaking around? You been all 'mysterious mech' when you could've just stuck around a little longer at the shindig, filled us in more."

Red Alert vented in annoyance. "I commandeered one of your friend's hard light projectors, it wasn't one of my own. I didn't realize he wouldn't keep them properly charged."

The indignation in his voice was so strong that Jazz had to laugh. 

"Half-charged…yeah, that's m'lord to a T."

"You haven't received your next orders yet, have you?"

Jazz scoffed. "You'd know if I had. I think one dead mech is more than enough for a few shifts."

"…it wasn't just one."

Jazz didn't answer. He put his arm over his face—then flinched when his visor got in the way. With a grumble, he unlocked the visor and let it drop to the floor. 

Red Alert leaned to look, but he couldn't see Jazz's face as he threw his arm over his optics, blocking out the light.

"You said you wanted to help," Jazz muttered. "So help."

There was a long silence. Jazz didn't peek, content to listen to the fan whirling in the background.

"You're not on a mission," Red Alert said, "so I can't help that way. But…how much do you know about your master?"

Jazz half-shrugged. "Put me back together once. Still paying him back for that."

Red Alert didn't respond. 

"What, is he good? Evil?" Jazz vented. "More evil'n I know about, anyway."

"He's old," Red Alert said, choosing his words deliberately. "Very old. I don't think you're the only pawn he has on the board. But you're the most active one right now."

"Yay for being teacher's pet." Jazz turned on his side, his back to the screen. "Tell me something I don't know. Who's that cassette belong to?"

"Good question. I've felt him a few times before. I'm not the only one moving through the communications grid. We've only spoken once. You'll know it when you hear him. He doesn't sound like any mech I've met before. Hollow voice."

Jazz grunted. "Long as I don't see his little pet again."

"Be careful. He has at least two others that I know about."

Jazz buried his faceplate in the soft vinyl of the couch with a groan. After a moment, the static shut off. Red Alert was no longer going to speak. Jazz knew he was still listening.

He soon fell into recharge, slipping into fitful dreams of singing as his club melted down around him. 

When he awoke, he found that he'd slept for two shifts. A half dozen message notifications blared in his cortex—nothing from A3, so it was nothing that couldn't wait. He fumbled for his visor, feeling along the ground until he found it, snapping it back in place. 

As every joint ached and creaked, he put his pedes on the floor and dragged himself to the bar, prepping a cube of oil. The blue and pink lights of the city shone against the black backdrop of space, drowning out the stars. Only the gleam of distant jets broke the horizon. A few flashing Enforcer sirens drove along the empty streets.

One by one, he checked the messages.

> _Iacon Authority: Curfew and lockdown have been extended until further notice. Remain at your recharge bays. Information leading to the arrest of the murderers responsible for the Senate Massacre carries a reward of twenty thousand credits. Read receipt confirmed._
> 
> _Cybertron News Network: Due to high demand, premiums for up-to-the-nanosecond news footage will be rising. Do nothing to accept the new charges._

"'Nanosecond' my aft," Jazz muttered.

> _Blaster: Have you heard anything? I'm running low on fuel for my cassettes. Might risk sneaking to the Eclipse if it goes on much longer._
> 
> _Prowl: The lockdown will lift in another five cycles. Curfew will lift in one cycle. No one may leave the city until lockdown ceases, but all normal business activity may resume then._

Jazz read the eagerness between the lines and sent a non-priority reply, promising a show. He copied it to Blaster with a request that he work the lights and sound. The acknowledging ping was an instant yes.

> _Ratchet: Sparkplug, get in here. Got a package, express medical delivery._

So his master had found a way around the package inspections. Despite his recharge, Jazz felt suddenly weary to his protoform.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be taking some liberties with the various canons.


End file.
